Cameron speaks

It was almost worth the wait. The substance of David Cameron’s speech on Europe was disclosed in this magazine a fortnight ago, but his delivery was excellent. He offered a clear-headed and almost touchingly optimistic vision of the type of union that the British public would find acceptable: one based on free trade, not bureaucratic diktat. One where power can flow back to countries, not be leached from them. And one founded on genuine popular consent, rather than broken promises and dodged referenda. Such a settlement would be nothing more than what the British signed up to when last consulted.

The Prime Minister based his speech on the most important point: that the Europe question is no longer about political factions. It is about the people. As he said, there is much discontent about the European Union, vividly expressed now and again on the streets of Athens and Rome. But when the European Commission conducted the world’s largest opinion poll two months ago to ask people if they would be better off out of the EU, no one showed more appetite than the British.